


Shishido's Birthday 2010 - Drabble Collection

by Everlind



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 18:51:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everlind/pseuds/Everlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A whole heap of brabbles for Shishido's Birthday 2010.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shishido's Birthday 2010 - Drabble Collection

**CROSSING PATHS (PG-13)**  
  
Apparently the ability to recognize mutual sexual attraction comes with age.  
  
Shishido stands there, feelings as lost and desperate and scared as he when he was fourteen and had nothing to loose, yet so much to gain by catching one stupid yellow ball. It took them one jolt of their eyes meeting and he's feeling all that topped with a good dose of need and he doesn't like it one bit.  
  
How long has it been? Six years? Seven?  
  
That they would meet here, of all places, in some obscure art gallery he didn't want to go to in the first place, but was pressured into by some friend. Who dumped his sorry ass for more tasteful company as soon as she could, at that. So he's spend better part of the evening staring at the so called artworks, trying to figure out how the hell he got tricked into this. The scribbles and blots and dollops of paint on the various flat surfaces mean jack shit to him, it's all abstract or whatever, and silly. The deep strong pull in the center of his being, however, at the sight of this person isn't abstract at all and very serious.  
  
"Shishido-san."  
  
He closes his eyes on a longer, steadying blink.  
  
But fucking hell Choutarou has aged well.  
  
His voice even, has gone deeper, smoother, cultured and warm and the sound of it slides down his spine like a dribble of hot honey.  
  
And so tall, towering over everybody, but no longer hunching and conscious about it. Or maybe that is the good deal of well-deserved confidence he's seemed to have gained, that clothes him better than any tailored tuxedo could (and damn at that, Choutarou seems to be doing well for himself. No surprises there), because now his shoulders are squared and his back straight and his chin up.  
  
Figures only Ohtori Choutarou could stand there like that, a small magnet to all eyes present, self-possessed and yet none of the arrogance any other would exude.  
  
He nods back. "Choutarou."  
  
He knows he should curb his familiarity, because he doesn't have the right to call him that any longer, but when his former doubles partner looks at him, like that, the point is moot anyway.  
  
And the point is moot completely when they end up at Shishido's small, cramped apartment, with him pressed up against the wall, held there by a strong body against his front and being kissed like he's never been before.  
  
He's never had anybody hold his face like that, a firm thumb tipping his chin up, but the rest of the fingers sprawled in a careful cradle over his cheek. Nor has he ever spend more than twenty minutes just caressing one other's lips, without the other person getting fed up and shoving their tongue inside of his mouth regardless of how intimate the simplicity of just lips can be. Nobody has ever touched his neck like that, finger pads lingering over his throat and soft swipes at his jawline, as though it's a part of him worthy of being thoroughly explored and committed to memory.  
  
Nobody has ever left his mouth with a warm cling of lips being removed, only to kiss his forehead and hug him.  
  
It figures Choutarou's a brilliant kisser as well.  
  
Considering everything, it is probably safe to assume he's got in a lot of practice.  
  
It figures that this is worse than anything that has ever happened to him, ever. It's horrible and he wishes it wasn't happening, because now he needs to open his damn mouth and ruin it, because he can't do this, not with Choutarou.  
  
He pushes him back and Choutarou, being who he is (that is good and kind and perfect), lets him escape from the embrace.  
  
Shishido looks at the ground, winces when he notices just how worn his 'good' jeans are, how he must look standing next to someone like Choutarou and what is likely the stupidest thing perched on the tip of his tongue.  
  
Likely there'd be troves people ready to kill to be in his position, but he still has some shreds of respect left. Even if he isn't comparable to Choutarou and even if this is something he might want, he won't do it.  
  
A hands touches his short hair, hesitatingly, flattening a wayward clump of it before cupping the nape of his neck.  
  
"What's the matter?" Choutarou asks.   
  
Damn, the way he looks with his nice white shirt undone and crumpled, enough buttons loose to show a generous slice of chest and his mouth red and swollen from being nibbled at by him.  
  
Yup.  
  
Let's face it. He's hit a whole new level of 'dumb'.   
  
Still.  
  
"I'm not some… one night roll between the sheets of the thank you-and-goodbye sort, Choutarou," Shishido tells him, trying for firm and proud, but winding up sounding as though he's swallowed a pack of cotton swabs. "It's not my style. Just saying… before this. Well. Goes any further."  
  
He expected the famed polite smile of miles-wide distance or even indignation that he'd take Choutarou home only to refuse him.  
  
Clearly that, but not being kissed again, at the corner of his mouth all chaste, before being enveloped in arms again.  
  
"I know," Choutarou says against his temple. "I didn't think you'd even let me come back with you. I am so happy you did." He laughs, truly elated, and leans in to kiss Shishido's mouth, though it hangs open in the most eloquent display of the emotion 'surprise' known to mankind.  
  
And then he kisses him again and again, and then his eyelids and cheeks and the tip of his nose and then his mouth again.  
  
"You're impossible to get over," Choutarou murmurs.  
  
Shishido swallows. Heavily. He's not suffering from suspiciously warm eyes or anything. Just a speck of lint. He hides his face against Choutarou's chest.  
  
"If we're not going to… going to have sex," he says, voice strangling over the last word in an effort to get it out nice and casual, "then what are we gonna do in the middle of the night?"   
  
There's a small pause. Choutarou holds him and kisses the top of his head while he mulls it over. "Do you still play?"  
  
Shishido pulls back, looks up at him incredulously. "Tennis?"  
  
A half-shrug and a sheepish smile.  
  
"At two in the morning?"  
  
A somewhat more doubt-filled nod, a wry twist of lips.  
  
"That's crazy." Shishido tells him. "And it sounds like the best thing I've heard in  _years_. You can borrow my spare racket. Let's go!"  
  
  
"Hai, Shishido-san!"  
  


* * *

  
  
 **CUDDLE (PG-13)**  
  
It's almost one in the morning when Ohtori makes it to bed. Small beads of water cling to the ends of his hair and tickle down the side of his throat where they brush his neck.The room has a nip of the oncoming autumn in it and makes him shiver as he undresses. His eyes feel heavy and his arms are sluggish when he moves to lift up the sheets.  
  
It feels good to lift his feet off cold wooden paneling and swing them into bed and even better when he reaches and finds impossibly warm and buttery skin. Shishido is slack and pliable in his sleep and molds easily to the curve of his front when he draws him closer.   
  
Sharing a bed with Shishido is the most amazing things to come out of their living together, despite it being easily one of the mundane and necessary routines of basic needs that need to be fulfilled.  
  
Besides the warmth and the feel of him, there's the smell. He buries his face into the nape of neck and breathes in, closing his eyes.  
  
To him, it's the best moment of the day.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **DANCING IN THE DARK (PG-13)**  
  
"…Shishido-san?"  
  
Shishido looks up from where he's stuffing all the wrappers and streamers into a large plastic bag. Somewhere across the hall Hiyoshi and Jiroh are doing the same. As far as parties go, this was a pretty good one. Secretly he is beyond grateful for that, because he wanted the last night the hyotei regulars were still a  _team_ , to be memorable.  
  
It's late.  
  
Not late enough to early morning, but the night is poised right on the brink where it is most dark and quiet, the shadows as heavy and vast as the ocean.  
  
At nose-height for him are two knees covered, for once, in jeans. His eyes trail up them (and don't linger on where the legs crest together, nu-huh) and up, and up. Dammit. With him crouching and Choutarou standing it seems like he'll go on sky-high. Well, he kinda  _is_  sky-high, isn't he? In a completely different manner.  
  
He smiles up at his doubles partner. "Hey," he murmurs.  
  
Or (he swallows) is that  _ex_ -partner now? After all it is Sunday morning now and their last day of being a team has ended at the stroke of midnight. For him, at least. Choutarou'll go on being a hyotei regular for another year. Shishido will go on to university.   
  
But, damn. These last few years have been quite something.  
  
Choutarou doesn't smile back. He's solemn and his eyes gather what little light there is left and gleam with burning warmth. Shishido doesn't need to ask to know his thoughts are dwelling on the crushing finality of this moment.  
  
They've talked about it, of course. The end of high school does not mean the end of  _them_ , but it is an end all the same.  
  
Slowly, he stands up, knees popping. He leaves the bag at his feet, spilling decorations and wads of tacky paper. He's covered in a ton of glitter, thanks to Taki. Choutarou has gotten even taller, but handsomely so. It fits him and Shishido loves how he looks in the dim lamplight, the way the shadows dust his cheeks and enhance his features.  
  
Even if they manage to see each other every single day, this won't ever come back. They look at each other, share a curl of mouth that's not a smile.  
  
"Can I ask something of you, Shishido-san?" Choutarou asks, he seems hesitant as though he suspects that his request will splatter against a wall with a capital N.  
  
Shishido blinks. "Yeah, sure."  
  
A thick swallow and then Choutarou reaches for his hand. "I don't think we've ever danced. Would you…"  
  
They've done just about everything to one other two people can do to each other (without all the really gross kinky stuff of course, geez), but they've never  _danced_. After all… that's kinda, well, super-lame. Why would they?  
  
Choutarou must see the overall opinion flash over his face, because his expression turns somewhat wry and sheepish. And resigned. His mouth opens.  
  
"Yes," Shishido says quickly, before he can change his mind or Choutarou can laugh it off with polite words. He swallows a lump what of feels like sticky cotton balls down, nods. "Yeah."  
  
It doesn't matter that Gakuto is already unhooking the sound installation and there's no music to dance  _to_.  
  
It doesn't matter that they can hear their teammates (ex-teammates, now) move around softly in the background.  
  
It doesn't matter that dancing seems to mean that they cling to each other, Shishido's head resting against Choutarou's shoulder with that familiar silver cross winking at him or Choutarou digging his fingers into his back really hard as though he wants nothing more than to reach inside and fuse together.  
  
The hall is shadowy. Paper crinkles as they shuffle in a slow, slow circle, embracing. Shishido sheds glitter from his hair and clothes, covers Choutarou with it in the process.   
  
Against his throat, Choutarou's hearts beats fast, panicky. Shishido gathers him closer, rubs his back. In his hair there's damp warmth. Shishido pulls back, tiptoes.  
  
The kiss is more a sharing of contact and breath, a reaffirmation that this is lasting, even if the rest has ended. They lean foreheads together as Shishido smudges the wetness across Choutarou's cheeks with his thumbs, erasing it. He looks at him from under his lashes and grins when he sees that his hair has left Choutarou's face covered in gleaming specks.  
  
"You're covered in glitter," he whispers and flicks some sparkles off Choutarou's nose.  
  
Choutarou laughs softly, voice still a little thick, yet genuine. He ruffles Shishido's hair as per demonstration and the both of them watch all the glitter cloud into the air.  
  
It's silver.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **DISTRACTION (PG-13)**  
  
A drop of sweat rolls down his temple.  
  
Shishido-san must do it to torture him.  
  
He must.  
  
There's no way he can't know what the Inducement formation does to him. Not only is Shishido-san bend over at the waist leaning forward, with his behind pointing at him, there's the beads of sweat at the back of his neck, which Ohtori aches to catch on his tongue as to taste the salt exertion of their game, but there's also the back of his thighs and the muscles cording taut, which he knows are vulnerable and sensitive under his touch and ticklish when they lie exhausted after. Also the sight of Shishido breathing, hard and deep, expulsions that make his body heave puts him in mind of other situations, which involve his hands cupping Shishido's hips and his heartbeat under his lips.  
  
Not even to mention the slope of his spine and the set of shoulders or even the back of his arms, tendons tensed for action.  
  
It's all he can do not to grab him and throw him down and-  
  
"Choutarou!"  
  
POK!  
  
The ball hits his forehead hard enough to actually bounce back over to Oshitari's and Mukahi-senpais' side.  
  
He staggers and then sits down hard on his ass.  
  
Shishido-san is there in a flash instead of his dash, pulling his hands away and checking for damage.  
  
When he's certain the only souvenir is just a tennis ball-shaped spot, he stands up and plants his fists on his hips.  
  
His eyebrows scream disapproval.  
  
"Che, Choutarou," he mutters, "pay attention."  
  
"Sorry, Shishido-san, I-"  
  
"-was having really wonderful daydreams." Oshitari finishes for him, a bland, knowing smile around his mouth.  
  
Mukahi winks.  
  
Shishido raises an eyebrow.  
  
Jiroh, who is supposed to be refereeing, snores.  
  
Ohtori blushes.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **ENDEARMENTS (PG)**    
  
Hiyoshi calls his girlfriend sweetheart when he thinks nobody is listening in on his phone conversations (though someone always is. Not to mention probably recording it as well).  
  
Kabaji calls Hanata Hana-chan, in a soft, warm voice.  
  
Atobe calls his girlfriend things like 'exquisite pearl' or 'beauteous apparition'.  
  
Oshitari calls Gakuto all sorts of things, most of them rather X-rated and not suited for repetition.  
  
Taki has started calling everybody darling for about half a day, until Shishido-san threatened to shove a canister of tennis balls down his throat.  
  
  
Shishido just calls him Choutarou.  
  
He says it all the time, greeting him as a senpai in the hallways, yelling it at him on the courts, with a question mark in the lilt as he offers a stick of mint gum, or just tossed out in a sentence.  
  
But he also says it low and rough, maybe a little jagged around the edges when they manage to fit themselves together really good, but always warm and intimate and more sweet than any endearment could be.  
  
Ohtori calls him Shishido-san.  
  
Always.  
  
Okay, no, not true.  
  
There are moments, specials ones, when he calls him Ryou. They are rare and in between and that much more powerful because of it.  
  
But one day he'll call him that always.  
  
And that will be more significant than any endearment could be.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **HANDS (R)**    
  
It's just hands, Shishido tells himself.  
  
He can deal.  
  
Really. The sight of those long fingers dancing over his jutting hipbone have no effect whatsoever on him. None.  
  
He's not horribly aroused. Not at all. They are watching some lame movie together (which actually is kinda cool because lots of stuff is blowing up in it) and Shishido is not suffering from the biggest hard-on of a century because Choutarou has gorgeous hands and is touching him with them.  
  
Only that's the situation and Shishido bemoans the fact that one of his biggest turn-ons is Choutarou's large hands. It's just that his partner is happily munching on popcorn and staring at the screen, while Shishido is lying half in his arms being caressed and nearly besides himself by just seeing him do it. But he just can't stop staring at Choutarou's fingers doing a clever maneuver that inches up his shirt, baring a strip of his stomach, before he brushes a tickling hand over his skin there.  
  
It is just that Choutarou has beautiful hands. Long, slender fingers and broad palms, short even nails and delicate wrists. A pianist's hands. There's immense strength in them and you can see that, but you can also tell they are used to creating wonderful things such as music and art and an impossibly fast serve. He has an exquisite way of moving his hands as well, gentle but sure, fingers arching just so as he trails them around Shishido's navel, round once, twice, before one finger stretches to dip inside, ticklish.  
  
All that is one thing. But Shishido remembers the time there was a mirror involved (which neither of them had noticed until Shishido suddenly had the shock of his utterly-aroused mirror-image staring back at him) and he mostly remembers just how big the contrast of Choutarou's hand on his hip was and the feeling that visual gave him.  
  
At any given time he'll complain loudly about their height difference and the unfairness of it.  
  
In reality Shishido likes it. He wouldn't admit to it even with a knife at his throat, but in the privacy of his inner thoughts he can dwell on it, the steadiness Choutarou's touch will give him and the sensation of being held  _safe_. There's nothing out there that can make him loose it as much as the sight of Choutarou's hand curled around his thigh, cupping the whole side of his leg with ridiculous ease, or seeing it guiding his waist or spanning his stomach completely.  
  
And that's not even mentioning Choutarou cradling his face between his palms, because that will make his knees shake and his lips part in supplication no matter what.  
  
Truth?  
  
When Choutarou touches him, nothing else matters.  
  
Especially when he's as aroused as he is, tucked into the crook of Choutarou's arm and fingers swiping lightly back and forth over his belly.  
  
His fingertips are slightly rough, from playing the piano and the violin, but they are so soft when they glide along his skin. They circle and play, tracing the elastic of his boxers, the lightest of swipes and Shishido wants him to quit playing around and touch him already.  
  
Somehow he grits his teeth through the feathering of caresses until they're nearly at the end of the movie, when the shit gets good and it's one glorious brain-numbing pulp of exploding cars and buildings. By then his stomach is so sensitive from being touched all the damn time and his thighs are trembling from being so stupidly turned on that he can hardly breathe with it. His skin is pricked into goosebumps as thought it s trying to crawl off his body and up those fingers for more contact. And just when he thinks of grabbing that trice damned hand and getting himself off with it, Choutarou puts it on him.  
  
Palm flat, fingers starfished in the middle of his belly, his navel trapped between the space of his index and thumb.  
  
It feels so good, not to mention warm and intimate that Shishido can't stop the sharp gust of air escaping him and his head tipping back on Choutarou's shoulder.  
  
Which is what gets his partner's attention. There's a turn of the head -Shishido can feel Choutarou's chin slide through his hair- and he knows he's looking down over his shoulder, undoubtedly making note of the tent in his pants.  
  
Goddammit.  
  
Actually he's too busy trying not to shamelessly arch up into that hand to be truly humiliated. He's just downright horny and he wants Choutarou to fix it, since it was all his fucking fault to begin with, having those hands attached to him and all.  
  
"Hello," Choutarou murmurs appreciatively, cheek bunching into a smile against his temple.   
  
If Shishido was more eloquent he'd open his gob and ask him who he was greeting: him or his damn dick, but turning that into grammatically correct sentence is currently beyond him. All he can do is hiss: "Touch me."  
  
"Alright," Choutarou says rather too agreeably.  
  
And with that his hand drags up, palm on Shishido's stomach, past his navel and under his shirt. It's a strong, smooth drag and Choutarou halts over his solar plexus, so tender a spot between the rest of his muscles. Then he strokes down and sideways, leaving the fabric rucked up over his chest. It's palm against the side of his waist and fingers hooked onto his belly and Shishido goes weak with emotion when he sees that contrast, the large hand and long beautiful fingers still spanning half of him.  
  
That was just the left hand. Now the right hand joins in as well, mirroring the grip on his waist and like that he has a perfect hold on Shishido.  
  
It's beautiful and good when they start wandering over him, but always safe and clean between the elastic of his boxers and the lowest of his ribs. It's still fucking good, because Choutarou is behind him, watching himself touch Shishido and knowing that it fucking turns him on so bad he's already hovering there, at the edge of his orgasm. His face is resting in Shishido's hair, mouth at the side of his face breathing hot gusts, heavy too, but not like Shishido is panting, desperate to spill over.  
  
In the end Choutarou doesn't even need to slip his fingers into his boxers, or swipe at his nipples. He just kneads and strokes the safe and innocent middle zone of his torso sweet and appreciative, egging him into arching and leaning into his hold, but never quite there, not until Choutarou removes one hand to cup his face, cradling it towards his lips kissing at the temple and saying "Ryou," into his skin.  
  
Like that he comes, shocked and outraged that the delicate possessiveness of that gesture would tip him over, but it did and Shishido feels himself bow with the intensity of it, one hand guiding at his waist and the other on his face and the hot moistness of lips next to his ear and Choutarou against his back.  
  
When he flops back, he has barely enough awareness left to see how half of the fucking world seems to be exploding on screen.  
  
"Boom," Choutarou offers, completely straight faced.  
  
Shishido weakly attempts to elbow him, but just gasps and flops lifelessly.  
  
It's just hands Shishido tells himself.  
  
And they are.  
  
But they are Choutarou's hands and over the years he's learned to play Shishido with them as expertly as he handles that damn piano.  
  
An artists's hands.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **HUNGER (NC-17)**  
  
They don't have much time.  
  
Half an hour, maybe. If they're lucky.  
  
When the last person had strolled out of the clubhouse their eyes had met. Next instant Ohtori had had Shishido pushed up against a random locker and is currently kissing him with everything he's got, all the pent up hunger and the missing of him and the loneliness of two weeks behind it. Shishido is giving as good as he's got  _back_ , placing kiss after kiss on his mouth, just heavy presses of lips, nothing more, as though he wants to reassure himself that this really is going to happen.  
  
"Touch me," he whispers. "touch me, please."  
  
He is. Kneading the muscles in Shishido's back, loving the reality of holding someone's body, cupping each hand over ribs as to feel him breathe and live between his palms.  
  
They struggle getting their shirts off and as soon as Ohtori drops his to the ground he prepares to try and see if he can somehow crawl past Shishido's skin and into him. Two hands on either side of his face stop him and they really don't have much time, but Shishido is looking at him, like that. It makes Ohtori blush, even though he is fully prepared to rip the last vestiges of Shishido's clothing off him so he can proceed with putting his mouth just about anywhere on that body in the little time they have. The look is sexual, but also more, the untranslatable something that assures Ohtori that they might be young and desperate, but what happens between them is something that will last.  
  
It doesn't calm his need to have Shishido right this instant, but instead of slamming him up against the lockers again he kisses him.  
  
Of course, that doesn't mean he hasn't got Shishido up against the lockers and his hand kneading his erection through his shorts five minutes later.  
  
They're on a tight schedule, after all.  
  
The clubhouse isn't their style. Not really. But the energy between them had been building up to this over the course of the past few days and the hot, aching hunger had been maddening. He'd been aching for Shishido and now that he can feel just how badly Shishido is aching for him, cupped in the palm of his hand and he knows exactly how to fix this.  
  
The only foreplay consists out of Shishido biting at his mouth and jaw, his eyes glowing with scalding eagerness. He is good at that, playing his skin until he's on the edge where  _yes_  would've become  _no_  had Shishido not been so damn good at keeping him at the ' _yes_ ' and also at the ' _yes, please, please, Shishido-san, don't stop_!'   
  
Shishido likes to use his teeth. Nips and nibbles and scrapes of them, carefully marking Ohtori all over. Well, not  _all_  over, he makes sure the marks are invisible when he is wearing clothes. But his chest and stomach and even the inside of his thighs are all fair game. Now his target seems to be Ohtori's left nipple, to his great distress, because Shishido likes to use his tongue as well as his teeth and if he keeps this up there's not going to be much more action from him.  
  
So now it is his turn, pushing Shishido's shorts and boxers down his hips, his hands creeping back towards his buttocks (and really, Shishido as a fine behind, tough he'd never dare to voice this out loud). Shishido bites hard, a little too hard, teeth luckily not on his nipple, but at each side of it, leaving purple half moons bracketing it, when Ohtori slides a finger inside of him.   
  
The lotion isn't perfect but all they have and he doesn't want to hurt Shishido-san, but neither have they got much time.  
  
As careful as possible he presses a second finger into the hot cling of his body, slides his free hand soothingly up and down a sharp hip.  
  
It's nearly too much when he lifts him, and too much when Shishido's thighs clamp possessively around his waist, and it's very, very close when the pressure is deep and sharp, before he slides into the slick, tight sensation of being  _inside_  of Shishido-san.  
  
"Oh, fuck," Shishido hisses, and his head falls with a hollow thud against the locker.  
  
It  _must_  hurt, it must. Ohtori knows the feeling himself: fierce and burning and so intensely sharp, but there's a look on Shishido's face, one that is soft and hazy and, Ohtori realizes, very in love.  
  
They're louder than they should be. Shishido is making an actual full-throated noise, a cry and a growl of pleasure and Ohtori can hear himself say things, stupid things he'd never even think of saying and Shishido-san is hearing them and saying them back. Besides their moans and sighs and the words that get bitten out between open-mouthed licks and nips, the locker makes an atrocious metal clunking noise to the rhythm of his trusts.  
  
He's gripping Shishido where his thighs flow over into his buttocks and he can spread him, a little, to take him even deeper, so he does, with Shishido's nails racking fiery trails along his shoulders and biceps, but also saying his name hard in acute approval and need.  
  
They're devouring one other, reveling in the sweat between them, the slick essence of Shishido's own arousal, the moist heat of their mouths meeting and the agony of pleasure.  
  
It's too much when Choutarou looks down when Shishido starts pumping himself hard and fast and completely shameless about it, the heat of his orgasm against the skin of his stomach and the pure bliss as his free arm pulls at his neck to rub their faces together.  
  
That's as far as he lasts, with Shishido shuddering and breathing hard and clamping down around him because then he's coming too, over and endless it feels like, sobbing at the pain of the final release.  
  
His knees give out and he crumples to the floor, Shishido's back making a squeaking noise as it drags against the locker. With Shishido in his lap, Ohtori rests his head on his shoulder and tried to remember how the base mechanics of breathing worked.  
  
"You okay?" Shishido asks after a moment. He sounds kind and warm, but worried, too.  
  
That half an hour will be as good as gone.  
  
"Yes," Ohtori says into his neck. "I am now."  
  


* * *

  
  
 **IT FIRST HAPPENED WHEN… (PG)**  
  
It first happened when he was thirteen.  
  
New and nervous on the regular's and there thanks to the unparalleled strength of his serve. The changing rooms after practice. It had been an accident really. He'd turned to reach for his school shirt and had landed nose first into long brown hair.   
  
Shishido-senpai had been heading towards the showers, last off the courts after a drawn-out game against Jiroh. His hair had been damp and sweaty, had smelled strongly of  _him_. It had been soft, silky almost, loose out of its ponytail as it had been, because Shishido-senpai had had the elastic between his fingers and a bottle of shampoo in the other hand.  
  
Most people on the team had some sort of fascination with Shishido-senpai's hair, positive or negative. There hadn't been anybody else with hair that long, not like his, to his shoulder blades when down, before he hacked it off.  
  
But Ohtori had stood there dazed and startled and  _warm_  deep to the core of his being, while Shishido-senpai had given him a weird and rather cross look over his shoulder, but had just walked on.  
  
  
He is twenty-three now.  
  
And it still happens.  
  
Now Shishido's hair is short and tickles, but still so soft and thick and wonderful to bury his nose in. Now Shishido will smile or roll his eyes and touch him back.  
  
It still happens.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **LAUGH (PG)**  
  
When Choutarou throws his head back and laughs, it does something really weird to Shishido.  
  
He never knew that there was any way to experience a sound in a more physical way that getting goosebumps during a kick-ass guitar solo.  
  
Goosebumps is just that, a slightly chilly and pricked experience.  
  
But when Choutarou laughs Shishido smiles, too.   
  
The sound of it is surprisingly deep, masculine, more so than his polite intonation would suggest. And he can feel it, down his spine like a clatter of hot, thick drops and then slick down molten, to settle along the crest of his hips and radiate inwards. There the presence of it will echo through the pit of his belly and  _glow_. It will warm him and spread up again, higher until it washes over his chest, through his heart and reach his lips.  
  
He'll smile or even laugh with him, a resounding moment of very damn good between them.   
  
And Choutarou will look at him and smile right  _back_.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **PRESENT NR1 (PG)**  
  
The first present Choutarou ever gave him was when he turned fifteen.  
  
His parents had graciously vacated the house for the occasion, so he could have a modest amount of friends over to celebrate with. This turned out to be mostly the team, of course, and some other friends .  
  
And Choutarou.  
  
Who was part of 'the team', part of 'friends', but also a whole new category all by himself.  
  
It came as a surprise when the bell rang and Shishido dropped Gakuto out of his chokehold to dash over and open the door. Only to see what must've been every single flower in the near vicinity of Tokyo crowed on his doorstep. All in hues of bright, loud red and dusky purple.  
  
Maybe it only looked that much, but then again Shishido had never received flowers.   
  
Let alone from another guy.  
  
"Happy Birthday, Shishido-san!"   
  
Slightly bemused, Shishido accepted them. For as far as he could tell, they were beautiful flowers. Full and fresh, but also smelling utterly of… well, flowers. Which, du'h, was kind obvious that they should, but his mother had told him once that you could tell the quality of a bouquet by its smell. And in this case… Wow.  
  
In the doorway, his partner shuffled his feet. "Do you…" Choutarou hesitated, gestured anxiously. "Do you like them?"  
  
Shishido blinked.  
  
Well, they were flowers.  
  
Which equaled pretty, he supposed.  
  
"Y-yeah…" he tried to stuff his nose between the petals without looking as though he was deeply inhaling.  
  
And they really smelled nice.  
  
Choutarou fidgeted, looked as though he might begin to regret his decision, until Shishido peeked through all the red and purple that was filling his vision and smiled at him.   
  
"Yes, I like them," he grinned and stepped aside to let his friend enter. "Thank you."  
  
Really, even if he hadn't liked them (but he kinda sorta really really did), it would have been worth the small lie just to see Choutarou light up and beam that genuine smile at him. Seeing Choutarou happy was enough to make  _him_  happy these days, though he hadn't really puzzled out why that seemed to be so.  
  
Everybody gave them a  _look_  when the both of them walked into the living room, Shishido with his arms full of the most glorious flowers ever grown and Choutarou with a pleased flush. Maybe it was because it was his birthday that everybody kept their mouths shut. Everybody except for one, that is.  
  
"Flowers?" Oshitari said, one brow arching and his mouth curling. "Ohtori-kun gave you flowers.  _He_  gave  _you_  flowers."  
  
Shishido fetched a vase and turned to look at him. "Yeah. He did," he said pointedly. "Why?"  
  
The last was a challenge. He knew what Oshitari was hinting at, but Shishido'd be damned if that damn wannabe-megane so much as thought that he'd allow him to embarrass Choutarou over his choice of present. He knew that Choutarou had probably agonized over it for weeks and had chosen flowers with the best of intentions, unusual though it might be for a boy to give to another boy.  
  
Bottom line? He liked them. It was unusual and special and personal. Choutarou had even gone as far as to pick out his favorite colors.   
  
Oshitari quirked his damnable secretive and knowing smirk at him and shook his head. "It was nothing," he said. "They're nice."  
  
  
Later that night, when everybody had gone back home and his mother was finished stuffing him full snacks, Shishido sat in the middle of his bed looking at the flowers on his nightstand. Flower petals had a certain soft, visual quality about them, which made you want to touch them. He'd reach and touch one, marveling at how fuzzily lustrous the purple became towards the center, or how vibrant the red. It wasn't even necessary for him to lean in to get a good whiff of their scent: the whole room smelled of them.  
  
In the end he had to admit he didn't like them after all.  
  
He loved them.  
  
The idea that Choutarou had given him something like flowers sat strange, but not unwelcome. It was a warm splash of knowledge that lived in his mind and had him smiling at the sight of them.  
  
But one thing was bothering him immensely, so badly that it nearly soured his mood.  
  
Flowers died.  
  
They withered.  
  
First they'd go limp. Then they'd start curling closed. The edges would go brown and the scent would become sickeningly sweet. Finally the petals would drop, littering the cabinet, the corner of his bed and the floor.  
  
The concept of that progress made the bottom of his stomach feel faint and weak. But they'd been cut off. They  _would_  die, no matter how carefully he took care of them. Taking a picture would preserve a accurate and nice visual memory of them. But it wasn't enough. The flowers themselves would be gone nonetheless and he hated that he couldn't stop that. The moisture held in them would turn bad and poison them all the same.   
  
And then it came to him.  
  
At the back of a drawer in his desk sat a long-forgotten and dusty notebook. When he'd turned ten an uncle had somehow thought to please him with a 'grow-up' book, with sturdy leather binding and thick, blank creamy pages. He'd torn one sheet from the back of it the day after he'd got it to fold an airplane from, but had lost further interest when it refused to fly straight.  
  
He ruined about six flowers in the process, growing more frustrated at each attempt, but after one and a half hour of sweat-bathed fiddling, he had two of them -one red, one purple- pressed securely between the pages.  
  
He'd seen girls do it.  
  
Nobody needed to know.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **PRESENT NR2 (PG)**  
  
The flowers had gone soft and papery. The red had faded, but couldn't be called pink. The purple had lightened to violet. The stems and leaves were the darkest of greens. When he put his nose close enough, the faintest whiff of their original scent lingered.  
  
Shishido smiled to himself and carefully turned enough pages to keep the flowers secure, until he got to a fresh spot. At the top of the page he wrote the date as clean and neat as he could, his best handwriting.  
  
It was the day after his sixteenth birthday.  
  
Today, after school, Choutarou has been waiting for him at the gates.  
  
Shishido had hardly believed his eyes. For all that they were close, it was difficult to keep up regular contact. They were too young to be truly free of those rules that would've otherwise allowed them to meet up in the evenings. Choutarou's parents especially found evenings to be for studying and Sundays as well, and if not that, for practicing his music. A handful of times was all they'd managed to see each other.  
  
He hadn't asked, but he suspected Choutarou from actually lying to his parents to get away after classes on a school day and staying out as late as they had been. The idea makes him feel guilty. But it had been awesome, complete with tennis and tons of unhealthy food and the two of them stumbling over their words in an effort to try and tell one other everything they'd been unable to share.  
  
Somewhere in the middle of it all the two of them had crammed into a photo booth.  
  
It had been a tight fit, especially with their tennis equipment and Choutarou's long limbs. Their legs had been one long unbroken line from hip to ankle and Shishido had found himself wanting to do something about that, but he wasn't sure what. Then there'd been the flashes of the camera and the both of them making faces or teasing each other.  
  
Out of the numerous they'd taken, only one strip he actually slips into the notebook.   
  
Four frames.   
  
In the first Shishido is making a devil's horns gesture and baring his teeth frightfully, while Choutarou is looking sweet and radiant as he flashes a V-sign.   
  
In the second they are shoving each other and it shows them laughing and their hands wound into t-shirts. Choutarou is barely in the frame, mouth wide and smiling, as Shishido pretends to push him out of the cubicle.  
  
The third has Shishido with his arms around Choutarou's neck, wrestling, and Choutarou's long hands at his ribs as he tries to tickle him.  
  
In the last, the fourth, he still has his arms around Choutarou's neck, but the teasing has fled and they're just sorta smiling at each other. Choutarou is flushed, his hair is on end and his eyes are a dark, deep brown.  
  
He likes that last one best.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **PRESENT NR3 (PG)**  
  
It could've been the worst birthday present ever.  
  
Instead it was one Shishido would always remember.  
  
Rain was coming down hard and thick. He was wet through. His black shirt hung on him, the hood heavy with all the water it had sponged up, dragging at his neckline. Jeans chafed at his hips and clung precariously low, staying where they should be by virtue of the belt he had looped through before heading out. Slicked against his skull, his hair made sticky tendrils against his ears and neck, scattered droplets when he whipped around to grin at Choutarou.  
  
His friend was just as soaked as he was. Not only that, but he was wearing a white shirt that was positively see-through at this rate, causing girls to grope him left and right. At fifteen-going-on-sixteen, Choutarou was growing into his body. There was a period where everything about him had been mismatched: feet too big, arms too long, shoulders too broad, waist to slender, and all in different spurts. He'd been awkward and suffering from pain pangs in his legs. Now he stood impossibly tall and everything about him was coming together.   
  
He was handsome.  
  
And now, under an inky sky packed with rainclouds and the multi-colored lights from stage playing over his features and grinning back at him, he was even more so.  
  
The concert was great.  
  
Shishido had only attended a few, whenever Gakuto could scrape enough money together to accompany him. That had been fun, as well. But now, with Choutarou by his side, it was even better. Never had he expected to open the card his friend had given him only to see two tickets for a rock-concert (which, after this night, he'd hide in the notebook). It had been a band he might've mentioned once or twice to Choutarou, but never had ranted over, because it wasn't the other's style at all. When he'd gotten the heads up that the band was coming to Tokyo he'd ran to the nearest sales point after school. By then, of course, it had been too late. It had been a bitter disappointment.  
  
So imagine his surprise to get them from Choutarou, who liked freaking' Chopin, and two of them, because they were both going.  
  
It was amazing to see one of his favorite bands, one not well known in Tokyo -let alone Japan-, live.  
  
It didn't matter it was pouring.  
  
He didn't care that the mud was splattered up his jeans 'til his knees.  
  
The rain was actually warm and glorious.   
  
The band was awesome, as good as, no, better, than he'd expected, but for some reason when Choutarou tipped his head towards the sky, eyes blinking against the drops and eyelashes spiked together, rain sliding down his face and his hair a curling mad nest, enjoying himself, well… that was even better.  
  
That night, Shishido realized he was in love.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **PRESENT NR4 (PG-13)**  
  
When he turned eighteen, he got a present of sorts.  
  
It was a strip of notebook paper, folded into a neat square so it could be pushed between the slats of his locker.  
  
It said:  
  
I love you. Meet me at the fountain at 20:00.  
  
It had been the most simple and blunt love declaration ever. The script had been carefully manufactured into a standard and bland style, unrecognizable. It had not been written on colored or scented paper, nor had it been written in colored or scented ink. No elaborate text that listed all his virtues or the admirer's own, no extensive litany on why they belonged together. No hearts. No name.  
  
Because of that alone, Shishido decided to show up.  
  
It was refreshing and honest, something he appreciated.   
  
So after numerous helpings of his favorite foods prepared by his mother, Shishido slipped out and retraced his steps back to school. It was strange to be there after classes: the grounds empty and devoid of life, the light slanting differently. Only the clatter of the fountain.  
  
There was no one.  
  
Shishido felt hot anger and humiliation, because for the one time he showed up it was some prank, something some asshole would have a good laugh about how gullible he was.  
  
And then someone behind him said: "Shishido-san."  
  
His best friend stood there, tall and concerned looking.  
  
Shishido blinked. "Choutarou? What are you doing here? Don't tell me… you got one, too?"  
  
Choutarou looked at him, steady and there, as he always was. "One what?"  
  
"Some note with a love declaration." Shishido said, lip curling sardonically. He couldn't believe he fell for it.  
  
A shake of the head. "No, I didn't," he whispered.  
  
Shishido didn't get it then.   
  
He didn't get it, either, when Choutarou came closer. He didn't understand why he seemed so close, too close, closer than he ever had been, or was that just his imagination. Even when Choutarou kissed him, warm mouth on his dry lips, he didn't understand.  
  
But when Choutarou said, "I wrote it," after he pulled back, leaving Shishido's mouth a humming bee-sting, he started to get it.  
  
And he really got it when Choutarou kissed him again  
  
  
That night at home, when he carefully placed the slip of paper in his notebook, he got the flowers and the look on Choutarou's face in the photo booth and the concert tickers for a band Choutarou didn't even like.   
  
He closed the notebook with the greatest care and touched his mouth, smiling.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **PRESENT NR5 (R)**  
  
The fifth item wouldn't stay taped down.  
  
Even though he'd taken the smallest pebble he'd found.  
  
It wasn't the first time they'd made love and he sure hoped it wouldn't be the last. They'd snuck out together, in the earliest hours of the night, to be alone together. The house Atobe had rented off to celebrate his birthday had been right near the beach and when they'd slowly undressed one other, it had been with the swelling tide as the only other sound besides their heartbeat.   
  
That night was for him the present. The two of them alone, bodies rising and falling like the waves behind them, Choutarou murmuring at him as he moved over him, behind him, under him and after, when they laid embracing. It had been utterly dark, barely enough stars out to see one other, but it hadn't mattered to express what was needed.  
  
He'd actually gotten an 'official' present: a videogame he'd been lusting after, but hadn't been able to afford. Of course he'd been grateful.  
  
But for this, he is even more so.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **PRESENT NR6 (PG-13)**  
  
It hadn't even been the fanciest restaurant. No family diner, either, but just nondescript food. Cheap but tasty, especially when he didn't have to wrestle a meal into submission in his tiny apartment.  
  
Stomach full and working on the last of the wine meant that Shishido had been feeling loose and easy, happy to be together with Choutarou. They saw each other as much as possible. But both of them had responsibilities left and right and now that Choutarou had graduated and had got himself a good job, they saw each other only a handful of times. Hear each other, yeah. Shishido's phone bill could testify for the hours they spend talking over the phone, or if the costs were running too high, chatting and e-mailing. They missed each other and even now, in a public restaurant, they couldn't help but press their legs together under the table, to soak up the contact.  
  
They were lonely even when surrounded by other people.  
  
He missed Choutarou like a keen blade of the knife piercing through him. And this after being together for six years already, so it wasn't an adolescent fancy.  
  
But it had been wonderful: full of laughter and burning looks, but then Choutarou had gone all quiet suddenly.  
  
"It's you birthday," he'd said, plucking at the hem of his sleeve.  
  
"I hope you'll give me what I wanted," Shishido had said, with a pointed glance and a little smile.  
  
Choutarou had laughed, tapped their knees together under the table. "That, too," he'd responded. "But something else as well."  
  
He'd taken something out of his pocket, slid it across the table towards Shishido after the slightest hesitation.  
  
A key.  
  
He hadn't got it.  
  
Now, standing with Choutarou before a small house, he gets it like a kick to the stomach.  
  
It was a place they'd looked at when Shishido had moved out of his parents' house and Choutarou had helped him in his hunt for a flat to live. He'd fallen in love with this house instantly, no matter how small it was, or how much work it'd need. As soon as he'd stepped inside, he'd known that this was the place. The general atmosphere, the green he saw outside the window, the quality of the air and sky and light. The feeling of it, the layout of the rooms, the ingenious sliding closets and storing compartments. The large open windows.  
  
Even then, in that split instant, he'd seen himself live there with Choutarou. Big enough for the two of them and a dog. He could picture how the furniture might go, how the light would fall in the room when they woke up. Or the two of them at the table for breakfast, or Choutarou on his piano that would, with some careful planning, fit inside as well. The old fashioned large tub, big enough to bathe both of them. Big enough to make love in.  
  
But, fresh from university, he hadn't had enough money to afford even half of it, by manner of speaking.  
  
"I should've talked about it with you," Choutarou said huskily. His voice sounded strangled, thick. "I'm sorry. I didn't think-"  
  
Shishido didn't let him finished. They were right in the middle of the street and it was still light out, but he tiptoed and kissed Choutarou, over and over and over.  
  
"It's perfect," he muttered in between kisses. "The perfect present. Don't you ever get me anything else again."  
  
Choutarou nodded and promised and Shishido dried his tears of relief with a clean, if rumpled, napkin from the restaurant.  
  
  
It's a tear-stained napkin that is the last thing to go into his notebook.  
  
The most perfect present.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **PRESENT NR7 (PG-13)**  
  
When he wakes it is to the warm haze of sunlight on his face. The curtains hadn't been pulled properly and the sun has risen just so that it slants through the gap and across his eyes.  
  
Either it is that which woke him or the soft brush of long fingers combing through the hair at his temples. Or even the wriggling body against his butt.  
  
Tentatively, Shishido cracks upon an eye.  
  
"Good morning," Choutarou says softly. He's leaning on the knuckles of his supporting hand while he touches Shishido with the other. Sheets have slid down to bare his shoulders and chest. In the warm morning sun, he seems to glow.  
  
God. This is it, isn't it?  
  
Happiness.  
  
Something squirms, then flops. A paw hits him in the small of the back.  
  
Stupid dog. Ever since she figured out how to open doors, she's been sneaking inside their bedroom. They'll go to sleep without the dog and usually wake up with her sprawling and taking up half of the bed. A lock might be the answer, but neither of them have the heart to shut her out.  
  
There's a lazy wag of tail when he pokes her and then a lolling tongue. Shishido rolls his eyes.  
  
During all this, Choutarou keeps fingercombing, eyes warm and intent. Shishido sighs contently, leans his head into the caress.  
  
It doesn't happen a lot that they both manage to get the day off on his birthday. Wonderful, a day together in the middle of the week and one that seems to promise the last of the sun for the year, at that.  
  
That's all nice and all, but Shishido actually plans on kicking the dog out soonish so he can do something about that look in his partner's eyes.  
  
Choutarou kept his promise. He's never gotten another birthday present in all of the years since they moved in together and he's truly more than okay with that. This is enough. There's nothing that could top this and if Choutarou really feels like giving him something, he'll find an excuse to do so next week.  
  
But for more than ten years now his birthday has been just this: waking up together with Choutarou, in the selfsame house they moved into.  
  
That's more than enough.  
  
Choutarou smiles, but there's the promise of sex in the curve of his mouth. Shishido smiles back, starts to feel for a waist under the covers.  
  
"Happy birthday," he murmurs as they draw together to embrace.   
  
Shishido starts to kiss his neck.  
  
"I noticed something while you were asleep," Choutarou says as his hands slide down Shishido's back.   
  
"Hm?"  
  
"You're getting gray streaks at your temples."  
  
Shishido somehow chokes, coughs, splutters -all at once- before proceeding with hitting Choutarou up the side of his head. His partner laughs, loud and clear, as Shishido tries to simultaneously bite and drool on him.  
  
Yet he can't help but smile, too.  
  
  
  
In the bottom drawer of his nightstand lies the notebook.   
  
Shishido hasn't put anything else in it but for these: a red and purple flower, photo booth snapshots, concert tickets, a note, a pebble and a napkin.   
  
And that's enough.  
  
This is more than enough.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **RESTLESS SLEEPER (R)**  
  
He wakes because there's a sudden draft of cold air along his back and a foot in his side. Fishing for the sheets rewards him with sharp elbows and sprawling arms instead.  
  
Ohtori opens his eyes, peers.  
  
Shishido easily takes up more than half of the bed, all sharp angles and boney limbs akimbo, with one foot planted on him, just about ready to shove him out.  
  
He grabs the foot, pushes it away, which rewards him with a sharp fist knocking him over the head and when he grabs that Shishido's other foot lands just shy of his crotch.  
  
Letting go of all the rest he takes care of that  _first_  trapping it under his right leg. At which Shishido shifts and pulls up his free knee sharply, knocking the wind out of his lungs. Coughing, he maneuvers it down, plasters it under his left leg. Just as he manages to keep their shins from grinding painfully, there's a forearm in his mouth so he grabs it and pins it down, too.  
  
Shishido opens his eyes, sees him braced on all fours over him, blankets lost and naked and cold and not to mention highly annoyed.  
  
He still has one hand left over.  
  
Shishido smiles up at him sleepily, lifts it.  
  
The palm of his hand is warm and rough as it settles on his jaw and steady as he coaxes Ohtori's head down to kiss the annoyance away.  
  
Ohtori smiles into it, kisses back. But the hand isn't done yet. While Ohtori is preoccupied by the kiss it moves down his neck, down his chest and reaches between them.  
  
Gropes him between the legs.  
  
Choutarou gasps and shudders, looks down on Shishido's sleepy smug face with surprise.  
  
The hand pumps up... and down, nice and slow.  
  
"Sorry, did I wake up?" he murmurs. His fingers tickle towards the tip of him and his thumb swipes over the head of him. "Do you mind?"  
  
"Uhm," Ohtori goes.  
  
"Thought so."   
  
He doesn't mind Shishido's restless sleeping so much after all.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **SKETCHBOOK (PG)**  
  
It is a drawing of him.  
  
They are ALL drawings of him.  
  
Page after page after page after page of them.  
  
Even pretending to be sneaky is something he's incapable of, he's just sitting in Choutarou's chair leafing through the sketchbook. Shishido thought that Choutarou was just suffering from 'idle hands' and had been doodling, really, creative and crazy talented as he is.  
  
But Choutarou was drawing  _him_.  
  
In great detail.  
  
Right now he's staring at a page that has been devoted solely to his eyes. He knows they are meant to be his and would have even if what is sketched out on the page wasn't an exact copy of what he sees in the mirror each day (but which they are). But there is one with the bandage over his eyebrow and one without, even, with the scar in great detail. Even more so confronting are the endless repetitions of his irises and pupils, with his lashes and lids detailed in painstaking effort and a vague hint of eyebrow in a rough pencil slash above it. He's shocked at the intensity the gray tones of graphite convey and doesn't know how to feel about the possibility of him truly looking at people like that.  
  
Not only that, but pages filled with his mouth and shapes it makes, some with teeth bared and others with his lips relaxed or smiling.  
  
Half of the book is devoted to his face and every single detail of it, even with his hair still drawn long here and there.  
  
The other half are even more startling. His arms and shoulders. His hands and the folds of skin over his finger joints, the scars on his knuckles, his short and blunt nails. But also his knees and legs, the shape of his calves, muscles bunched and taut, but relaxed also, and his thighs corded as he crouches to receive a serve, or lean as he stretches. His chest and nipples and collarbones and navel, his back and boney spine, his ribs, his feet and toes.  
  
It's his body, in great detail.   
  
It's him.  
  
He hears Choutarou come in and stop short when he realizes what his senpai is looking at.  
  
Neither of them move, or say anything, or look at each other. They breathe. Choutarou stands where he is and Shishido looks at the sketches until it gets dark.  
  
He stands up only when Choutarou's mother yells to tell him it is time he should go.  
  
Slowly, methodically, he shuts the sketchbook and closes it, puts it back under the stack of magazines it was hidden under. After he zips up his rucksack and gathers his sweater, he walks out of the room.  
  
As he passes Choutarou he looks up at him.  
  
Choutarou looks as though something vital has fled out of him. He seems hollow and pained, though his shoulders are squared and a tad challenging. No shame.   
  
Just resigned.  
  
Shishido reaches for his hand -his right, the one that has made all those sketches, thousands of them, all devoted to him- and kisses it.  
  
Softly and as much dedication as he can he pours into it, though it can never begin to match all the hours Choutarou must've spend bend over that sketchbook.  
  
But he has years to make up for it.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **STRANGE BED (PG)**  
  
He can't sleep.  
  
No matter how he turns or how he tosses or how he arranges his arms and legs, he can't.  
  
It's a strange bed.   
  
Or futon, at that.  
  
And he'll have to sleep there for  _a whole week_. Not only that, but all around him the whole team dozes, snoring and mumbling and creating sleepy smacking noises, generally making it even more difficult for him to focus on the 'clean slate' state of mind, because he keeps wondering who is dreaming about the brain eating-pineapples.  
  
Only Shishido-san seems quiet in the bed next to him, a still outline under the sheets.  
  
Ohtori sighs, turns yet again. He's exhausted. He wants to sleep. Instead he switches to his other side and squeezes his eyes shut.  
  
Sighs again.  
  
"Can't sleep?" Shishido's voice carries soft and hushed through the rest of the noise.  
  
Wincing when he realizes that he was keeping Shishido-san awake with his sighing, tossing and turning, Choutarou shifts to face him. "Sorry, Shishido-san," he whispers back. "I didn't mean to keep you up."   
  
Shishido is two dark eyes gleaming in the faint light and dark hair above the oval of his face. "Strange bed again?" he asks instead.  
  
"Yeah," he answers and tries to still his squirming.   
  
Another hour passes during which there's no more conversation. Maybe Shishido-san fell asleep again. Ohtori turns left, then right, tries letting his arms and legs dangle over the edges, flips to his stomach and back again. Nothing helps and he's tired. He groans and puts his head under the pillow.  
  
"Wait," Shishido murmurs and before Ohtori can react there's a draft of freezing air against his back.  
  
Then it is replaced by an unbelievable warmth as Shishido spoons up against him. His heart races and his breathing escalates and Shishido just holds him. The futon is too small for two growing teenagers, it didn't even begin to fit Ohtori's long limbs properly to begin with. Shishido is plastered against him, a breathing, living source of warmth and skin and why does there seem so much exposed of it suddenly? At his ankles and arms and neck and a sliver of back and stomach where his shirt has ridden up and Shishido-san is touching all of it!  
  
"Sweet dreams," is all he says and two heartbeats later he's gone.  
  
For quite a while he  _lies_  there, stiff as a board and too bewildered to move, while Shishido breathes in a damp, hot patch against the back of his neck. But after half an hour the warmth of the second body is soothing and the arms keeping him place stop him from tossing and the rhythm of Shishido's breathing is lulling.  
  
There's also his heartbeat, slow and steady between his shoulder blades and Ohtori's own starts to match the pace of its own accord.  
  
He relaxes.  
  
Yawns.  
  
The last thing he wonders, before he falls asleep, is whether this means Shishido-san will sleep in his bed the whole week.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **TOOTHBRUSH (PG)**  
  
It's lame.  
  
  
It is and he knows it, but doesn't matter when  _nobody else_  knows, right?  
  
Really though. There is nothing that endears him as much as the sight of Choutarou dressed for bed in his pajamas with little puppies on it, all sleepy eyed and fuzzy with a toothbrush in his mouth, scrubbing until the foam drips into the basin.  
  
He's Choutarou's senpai and he shouldn't be wanting to… cuddle Choutarou when this happens, but he does.  
  
Worst of all?  
  
When Choutarou watches him crawl up on his futon and curl in a little ball because it is cold and snowing outside, huddling into his oversized t-shirt for maximum body-heat retention and says, "You look cute, Shishido-san."  
  
"Don't be lame!" Shishido hisses as he feels his cheeks heat up.   
  
Even lamer is Choutarou just laughing, loud and true, before reaching over to hitch the sheets over the exposed nape of his neck.  
  
It's lame.  
  
But he kinda likes it anyway.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **THUNDERSTORM (PG-13)**  
  
Ohtori would be indignant when Shishido-san laughs softly at his reaction, if he weren't occupied making sure that Shishido was  _right_  besides him and as close as can be with him not crawling into his lap. But he doesn't push Ohtori away and that's what matters.  
  
"You're not afraid, are you?" he asks, voice warm and that much more present with everything dark.  
  
"Of course not," he says quickly.  
  
But he sort of is, actually.  
  
Thunder and lightning never bothers him, he finds he kind of likes a good thunderstorm, but they have a heavy typhoon on their hands, which is bad enough all by itself, but now the power went down as well.  
  
It's the combination of the screaming wind and groaning house and the lightning that grinds down from the sky and the thunder rattling the spoons in their teacups. It's the violence and real danger of the storm outside that pricks his skin uncomfortably and the light being gone suddenly doesn't help either.  
  
It's pitch black, because the streetlights went, too, but for the sudden flashes of lightning illuminating everything, sharp and shocking, before drowning everything in shadows again.  
  
"Looks bad out," Shishido-san says matter of factly when an earsplitting clap of thunder jolts the very insides of their body.  
  
Ohtori nods, but of course Shishido can't see it.  
  
"Don't worry about it," Shishido goes on. "It'll blow over soon. Concentrate on something nice."  
  
"Like what?" Ohtori asks him, voice short and cramped, but he can't help it. What is he supposed to concentrate on anyway, when he can't see?  
  
There's a pause.   
  
"Maybe…" his senpai moves, bumps his cheek. "This?"  
  
Something warm and soft touches his mouth, shyly almost, before pulling away again.  
  
The typhoon is a distant, vague concern all of a sudden. Shishido-san just  _kissed_  him.  
  
"Nice?" Shishido breathes softly, suddenly being the one that is worried and frightened and uncomfortable.  
  
"Uhm…" Ohtori goes, and fishes for him in the dark to find his face so they can try that again.  
  
When they kiss this time, Ohtori forgets all about the thunderstorm.  
  


* * *

  
  
 **VIDEO GAME (R)**  
  
GAME OVER  
  
  
"Fuck!" Shishido howls, flinging his arms around in frustration. "Fuck, goddammit!"  
  
"I won," Choutarou says placidly, putting the controller down in the cradle of his legs and stretching his arms above his head.  
  
Shishido glares at him.  
  
It's not that he minds Choutarou being really fucking good at Tekken, but he minds that he can actually beat Shishido at it, not to mention breeze by his high score and set a new one (which completely sucks, because he spend ages upping his own, only for Choutarou to skip by and ruin it in one afternoon).  
  
Choutarou smiles back at him.  
  
Shishido tosses the controller down with a scoff and watches it skid along the carpet before disappearing between some empty candy wrappers. Then he sighs, "Fine," he mumbles. "What do you want? The History essay or the summary for Biology?"  
  
Choutarou gets up.  
  
"Something else?" Shishido asks, wondering what other homework he might have for him to do.  
  
Long legs step into his vision. In the uniform pants it's all nice thighs and strong calves shifting against the checkered fabric.  
  
"Chemistry?" he guesses.  
  
Choutarou looks at him, caught between playfulness and shyness. His cheeks are pink.  
  
"English?" Shishido hazards.  
  
Long fingers dance over the fabric of his pants and then move up towards his belt. Which he unbuckles.  
  
"Uhm," Shishido goes, confused.  
  
There's a low rip of the zipper going down.  
  
"Oh."  
  
Choutarou goes even redder. "Only if... I mean, you don't have to, but... I was hoping if-"  
  
"I see."  
  
"Sorry, I don't mean to-"  
  
With the buckle and zipper undone it is easy to tug at the fabric until it pools around Choutarou's ankles and the snug boxers come easy enough after he eases them over slim hips.  
  
He bites at the soft inside of Choutarou's leg, nuzzles.   
  
"Sit down on the bed," he murmurs.  
  
He does and Shishido inserts himself between his spread legs, rubs his hands over the trembling muscles and buries his head without further ado in Choutarou's crotch, getting a gasp and jolt in return.  
  
He smiles.  
  
Maybe he should lose more often.


End file.
